October 21, 2013

Lush Lacquer Mermaid Tears - A Polish With Many Faces

Hello readers. I was recently lucky enough to win one of Lush Lacquer's new thermal polishes from the collection launch contest. I chose Mermaid Tears as my prize because I just couldn't resist the teal-y goodness. It arrived in the mail last week and I was very excited to try it out.

Mermaid Tears is a dark teal jelly polished filled with fine and small teal hexes as well as a sprinkling of large teal circle glitters. It turns a bright limey green when warmed up. The formula was easy to apply. I used three coats to reach a good level of coverage and the polish dried smoothly. The only finicky thing about this polish is getting the circle glitters out of the bottle. I ended up with one on each hand without actively trying to get them. If you want more of them you'll have to go fishing for them.

The photos above show three coats of Mermaid Tears with one coat of Seche Vite in natural light on a cloudy day. You can clearly see the colour distinction between my warm nail beds and my cold nail tips. One thing I noted was that this polish seemed to react to the brightness of sunlight. In direct sunlight the polish seemed even brighter and more opaque than it appeared in cloudy lighting. However when I came inside after taking these pictures I discovered that this polish had even more faces to show.

The photos above show the exact same mani under a mix of fluorescent and incandescent lighting. Under these different lighting conditions the polish now looks like a sheer blue-teal jelly and the thermo colour shift isn't very evident at all. It looks like a completely different polish. However, the biggest surprise was still to come.

I have a saltwater fish and coral tank. Part of the lighting that corals need is in the UV spectrum so I use a special light fixture over the tank that produces light partially in this spectrum. As I was walking by the tank I noticed that all of a sudden my finger tips were glowing like mad!

They were even a brighter green in person! This explains why in bright sunight the colours look brighter and more opaque than in cloudy lighting. Sunlight must contain light in the spectrum that makes this polish fluoresce... so the brighter the sunlight, the brighter the polish. I don't think I've ever used a polish before that goes through this many transformations. From a colour changing neon polish to a sheer jelly to a fluorescent glowing polish. What do you think of the multiple personality lacquer?